Review of Legal Codes Governing Administrative Death Investigations and Autopsy by Administrative Order / 대한법의학회지

Under current law, there are two paths for death investigations: administrative and judicial. A proper death investigation system is essential to the establishment and maintenance of the human rights of those involved and to enhance the credibility of the judicial system as a source of ensuring the security of society. These objectives are accomplished through the accurate, professional, and systematic management of death investigations by qualified experts. The present study aims at reviewing and uncovering the limitations of the current legal codes governing administrative death investigations and autopsy by administrative order. The main problem being that no clear legal statements exist regarding the qualifications of persons responsible for administrative postmortem inspections and administrative autopsies; the problem is the same for any death related to crime. At the conclusion of this paper, the authors propose that legal codes regarding the scope of postmortem inspections or autopsies to determine the cause and manner of death should be clearly defined, and that the qualification standards for experts examining any desceased individual should be legislated.

The importance of the rate of pure "attended deaths at home" for objective outcome indicator for assessing the prevalence of home care in Japan

BACKGROUND@#No study has yet been performed on the importance of the rate of pure "attended deaths at home," excluding examined deaths subjected to a postmortem examination. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated actual state of pure "attended deaths at home," in order to provide reference data for the future development of end-of-life care at home.@*METHODS@#We performed a detailed survey in Yokohama City according to the type of death, age, and underlying cause of death in cases of home deaths, based on the detailed version of the Vital Statistics Survey Death Forms. Then, we divided deaths occurring in each municipality in Kanagawa Prefecture into two categories: "examined deaths" or "attended deaths," which were also stratified by the place of death, based on the Vital Statistics, and data on number of death cases subjected to postmortem examination from the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Headquarters.@*RESULTS@#In 2013, the survey in Yokohama City showed large differences in age distribution and cause of death between examined and attended deaths. In 2014, home deaths accounted for 15.7% of all deaths in the prefecture, whereas the overall proportion of attended deaths at home was 6.9%.@*CONCLUSIONS@#We should utilize the rate of pure "attended deaths at home" for objective outcome indicator.

Review of Legislation and Regulations Governing Postmortem Inspection and Death Certification / 대한법의학회지

The official investigation of death and the certification of the cause of death are among the most critical roles played by the government in maintaining public safety, carrying out public health surveillance, and compiling national health statistics. Currently, Korea has no single comprehensive act governing the postmortem examination system. Therefore, there might be some discord, contradiction, or defect in the current legal regime governing the examination of dead bodies. The authors reviewed various legislative instruments that contain the words, “death,” “corpse,” “autopsy,” “death investigation,” and “cause of death” by searching the website of the National Law Information Center (http://www.law.go.kr), which is run by the government. The authors found 64 laws and rules, of which 47 were reviewed for this study, after ensuring relevance to the subject. After a review and comparison of the acts and rules, the authors point out the discords, contradictions, and defects in the current legal regime on corpses and death investigations. They then present the need for a single comprehensive legislation addressing postmortem examination.

The Predictive Ratios of Intoxicated Deaths by Police's Death Scene Investigation and Doctor's Death Certificates in South Korea / 대한법의학회지

Forensic autopsies were performed on 1,821 cases in 2014 and 2,024 cases in 2015 at the National Forensic Service Seoul Institute. Based on the autopsy reports, 103 cases (5.7%) in 2014 and 130 cases (6.4%) in 2015 were selected as unnatural deaths caused by fatal intoxication. The cases were divided into five groups. The first group had ethanol intoxication, the second had drug intoxication, the third had agrochemical intoxication, the fourth had cyanide intoxication, and the fifth had miscellaneous intoxications. Of the 233 cases, 202 had death certificates. Of these 202 cases, 169 (83.7%) had an undetermined manner of death (MOD); 17 (8.4%) had an unnatrual MOD and intoxication was the cause of death (COD); nine (4.5%) had an unnatural MOD, but the COD was not intoxication; seven (3.5%) had a natural MOD and disease as a COD. The predictive ratios of intoxication as a COD were compared with the death certificates and the police death scene investigation results. The death certificates and the police investigation results showed predictive ratios of 8.4% and 55.2%, respectively, for intoxication as a COD. The discrepance in these predictive ratios and relatively low predictive ratio of police investigation results mean that intoxicated deaths have been underevaluated; thus, some homicides or intentional deaths were probably missed under South Korea's death investigation system. Doctors who specialize in forensic medicine need to supervise the entire postmortem examination process and emergency blood toxicological analysis should be performed in South Korea.

Medicolegal Death Investigation System in America / 대한법의학회지

Medicolegal death investigations in the U.S. have become a critical part of crime investigations over the past several decades. additionally, the roles of medical examiners (MEs) and coroners have expanded beyond the field of criminal justice in recent years. despite the fact that these roles are becoming increasingly more important a systematic and comprehensive study of this complicated system is yet to be conducted. Since there is no national standard or federal system, medicolegal death investigations vary across states, districts, and counties in the U.S. In this paper, we attempted to classify the systems into three categories. We also examined the roles and work procedures that MEs and coroners commonly share across the country as well as the problems and challenges that the medicolegal death investigation system is facing today. In addition, we have also provided a brief summary of the Korean system in order to add a comparative perspective, since the Korean legal system differs substantially that of the U.S.

Expert Opinion on Death Investigation Center for Medicine Related Death / 대한법의학회지

To check expert opinion about the investigation system of medicine-related death, model for "Death Investigation Center" was suggested and related questionnaire were requested. Between 15 December 2009 and 5 April 2010, we sent e-mails of the questionnaire which asked the opinion for the new postmortem investigation system. We sent the questionnaire to 3,289 lawyers and 4,523 doctors (total 7812), and received 100 replies out of the total. All the lawyers and doctors interviewed knew the importance of the postmortem investigation system. Most of them (87%) agreed to the introduction of the new postmortem investigation system. Some of them thought that protector's agreement was necessary for the postmortem investigation (21%), and more doctors were likely to participate with legal protocol (23%). If the postmortem investigation could not be performed due to the protector's disagreement, another specialized medical investigation should be needed to figure out the cause of death (85%). The new postmortem investigation system should be performed by the specific institution, and supported by the government (44%). In many expert's opinion, nonmedical experts such as lawyers and priests should be included for the institution of investigation for objectivity and neutrality (72%). This sample study finds that the postmortem investigation performed by specialized institution is necessary to determine the cause of death in the hospital. For the operation of the system, neutrality and the operating core would be the most important.

A university-based forensic pathology practice: The UPM-PGH experience (1996-2000)

Forensic Pathology is not a widely recognized field of medicine in the Philippines. Doctors involved in death investigation are often unskilled due to lack of formal training and their work is further hampered by insufficient support and material resources. Upon the authors return in 1995 from post-residency training in forensic pathology at a medical examiners office in the United States, she sought to establish a practice as a specialist based at the University of the Philippines Manila-Philippine General Hospital. This case review is the authors initial experience over the period 1996-2000. The procedures done and problems encountered are described, and recommendations on how the specialty can be professionalized are offered, Included are templates of actual worksheets for the guidance of local doctors doing forensic autopsies. (Author)